


Vital

by orphan_account, the_riptide_queen, TigerMoonBETA



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Amputee Peridot, F/F, Near Death Experiences, blood tw, car cash, more to be added - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5267627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_riptide_queen/pseuds/the_riptide_queen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerMoonBETA/pseuds/TigerMoonBETA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lapis Lazuli was never a bad person. Nor did she ever intend to be.<br/>But it's kind of hard to maintain a positive mindset when she accidentally hits someone with her car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> hey ! new project, me, piper, and eddie are working on together !  
> thegayfuchsia.tumblr.com  
> the-riptide-queen.tumblr.com  
> triangle-mother.tumblr.com

 

When an evening is silent, perhaps too much so, there's almost always something to break it. Either a gradual, build of sorts, left unnoticed until more than manageable and it consumes. Or short lived, almost unsure it existed in the first place and you’re left with a hollow, shadow of its presence. But that evening in particular, started off with a bang.   


Quite literally.

 

Now before the story begins, allow me to preface it with one, simple thing to keep in the back of your mind- Lapis Lazuli was never a bad person. Nor did she ever intend to be. But an incident such as this can drive the kindest person to question themselves, despite it being labeled an accident.  
Let that sit and fester in your head as you progress.   
  
She lived your typical, “recent-college-graduate” life. What that entails, an apartment in the city, a job at a music store, bought groceries every week, she had a car (even if it was her mother's old one- still a car), she was the epitome normal. Not bad at all.   
  
How amusing her own opinion of herself could change in a few, mere seconds.

 


	2. Vehicular Manslaughter

Because what the hell does one do when they realize they’ve just accidentally hit someone with their car?

 

Step one: Panic, naturally.

 

Step two: (which, in hindsight, probably should have been step one) call 911.

 

Was there even a step three? Panic some more, she guessed.

 

Lapis Lazuli was stopped at a crosswalk. Sitting in her car, a death grip on the steering wheel. So tight, she was almost positive it would leave a permanent indent in the material because her hands were already cramping up, and it had only been a few seconds. Or had it been minutes? Keeping track of the time was not justifiable because, well, simply:

 

She had just ended someone's life, or at least ruined it. Completely ruined their life in a split second and a loud sound that was something akin to a smack and a thud and- a crunching noise? It was easily enough to send bile up her throat, gut churning because _vehicular manslaughter was not something she wanted to add to the list of things to talk about at family dinner parties._

Around six in the evening- every damn day, and that day was no different- Lapis’ work would come to a close, and she would head home. Maybe stop and grab a coffee or tea on the way. Get home, fix herself something simple for dinner (she couldn’t cook to save her life), then brush her teeth, shower, catch up on her latest Netflix obsession, and go to sleep. Except… it wasn’t the case that evening. Because, not only did she end up getting home very late, but she managed to hit a passing stranger with her fucking car.   
  
That evening, on her way home; tea in hand (well, cup holder), a cozy sweater, and music playing through her car speakers. Not exactly the recipe for disaster, however, the latter was the perfect distraction, though.

 

She didn't see the girl crossing the street. She didn't notice that it was an intersection.

 _She didn’t see the girl crossing the street at the intersection that she didn’t notice and how out of fucking character._  
  
How out of character.

 

Lapis Lazuli was never a bad person. Nor did she ever intend to be.  
  
The second the loud thud resonated in front of her, she knew something bad had happened; and if that hadn’t clued her in, surely the ear-shattering scream that accompanied it did. Not necessarily bloody murder, but desperate and terrified and cut off suddenly, enough to make her face drain of color.

 

To be fair, this is a rather abrupt way to start a story, but trust me when I say that it is only the beginning of the multitude of crazy shit that she would get into that year. The start of a series of wild, tremendous, brilliant adventures that would occur over the course of the following 12 months.

 

Jumping back into the events of that night though, because cliffhangers are not fair, or professional in the slightest, the first thing she did was slam on the brakes. As though that would help. Her hands grew slick with sweat, as did her forehead, clammy all the same in a time that seemed humanly impossible and her heart pounded in her chest, up into her throat until that was all she heard. Did she really just hit someone?

 

Slowly, she unbuckled her seat belt and began to get out of the car. She should probably check to see if the other was alright, she supposed.

 

Who was she kidding, she was definitely not _alright._ This girl could be _dead_ for all she knew.

 

Neither of them were _alright._ And the girl could be _dead._ _The girl could be dead and it was all her fault._

 

Slipping out of her car, buckling knees and sticky palms, Lapis was tempted to run because there was _no way she had just hit a person._ But, as we all already know, she was a good person. A good person would not run. They’d own up to their mistakes and she’d be _damned_ if she didn’t. Perhaps she was already damned. She had to call an ambulance or _something._ Surely, they could help this girl much more than she could.

  
At the first sight of the girl, her gut dropped. In that moment it was impossible to breathe, and so she didn’t. Inhaled, exhaled, but it was like her lungs were broken and why the fuck couldn’t she breathe?

 

 

 

There was blood on the pavement. Blood- too much blood. It seemed to coat every inch of rock and pebble and _how could that much blood exist outside of a person?_ There was no way in hell this girl was still alive.  
Was it even possible? To go from a very content drive home from work, tea that had certainly spilled everywhere and for some reason her music was no longer playing. She couldn’t remember turning it off.

 

The scene before Lapis felt something straight out of a horror movie, eyes widening, pupils dilating despite the sun already having dipped below the horizon. It wasn’t that dark, still enough to elicit the street lamps to be on which added only more of an eerie glow of sorts that was the cherry on top of the whole mess.

 

Daring to step closer, and she did, legs moving on their own accord, she got a glimpse of green and mostly red. Red, red, blood and some broken pair of glasses, frames twisted beyond recognition and glass shattered. More blood.   
She wouldn’t look any further. Couldn’t.

 

Instead of being suspended in it though, time caught up with the two and all at once, her breaths were coming in fast and heavy and she fumbled to pull her phone out of her pocket. Her hands wouldn’t work and she willed them to anyway. Called for help and when they asked her what the emergency was, only then did it register.

 

“I hit her.”

 

“I hit her with my car.”

 

“I hit her with my car and she’s bleeding and I don’t think she’s alive.”

 

“I didn’t mean to.”

  
Lapis Lazuli was never a bad person. Nor did she ever intend to be.


End file.
